Sustainable Development Insights Series

Browse by:

Sustainable Development Insights is a series of short policy essays that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The series seeks to promote a broad interdisciplinary dialogue on how to accelerate sustainable development at all levels.

Recently Added

This issue explores the possibility of holding a Sustainable World Summit in 2012 and three possible options to support such an event . The paper concludes, “The world may not choose any of our three options as the grand ...

Stevens, Candice(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-04)

This issue explores the possible link between advances in achieving gender equality and advances in achieving sustainable development goals. The paper concludes, “As indicated by both theory and evidence, the lack of ...

This issue argues that accountability – or lack thereof- is a fundamental challenge in confronting improved global environmental governance (GEG) and that success must be measured not simply by the vitality of the negotiation ...

Satterthwaite, David(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-05)

This brief will argue that with the right innovation and incentives in place, cities can allow high living standards to be combined with resource consumption that is much lower than the norm in most cities today. This is ...

Kulatilaka, Nalin(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2010-10)

The Green Revolution in agriculture greatly increased crop yields and averted mass starvation, but it also turned small farms into factory farms that concentrated production in a few locations and reduced the diversity of ...

Otto-Zimmermann, Konrad(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2011-03)

Is there a role for cities in the Global Environmental Governance (GEG) system and, if so, what exactly should that role be? Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, the Director of ICLEI, argues that cities and local governments have ...

Over the past two decades, the Global Environmental Governance (GEG) system has grown and evolved, making much progress in incorporating sustainable development as the central goal of environmental governance, and delivering ...

AtKisson, Alan(Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 2009-10)

This issue explores how to continue accelerating sustainable development in an era of financial collapse and if sustainable development requires a “reset”. The paper concludes, “Perhaps the word ‘reset’ – a return to an ...